Monday, April 12, 2010

Brian Posehn Plays CGs

It takes some comedic chops to keep up with Sarah Silverman, but Brian Posehn is up for the challenge. Brian, who got his big break as mail clerk Kevin Liotta on NBC's "Just Shoot Me!," now has a long list of hilarious roles under his belt, most recently as a cast member and writer on HBO's "Mr. Show," and playing Brian Spukowski, Sarah's gay neighbor, on Comedy Central's "The Sarah Silverman Program." Throughout the '90s he appeared as a guest star on "Friends," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Seinfeld." You might also recognize him from roles in movies like The Devil's Rejects, The Wedding Singer and Dumb and Dumberer.Brian will perform at Common Grounds on Wednesday, April 14. But before then, he took the time to talk to INsite about fame, pranks and why the "Friends" cast is not cool.

Read on to win tickets to the show!

What does it feel like to be on stage and tell jokes? It's hard for me to comment on that that because I been doing it for so long. There are certain nights where I'm more aware how weird it is talking about my wiener to strangers. Occasionally I'll become aware of how strange my job really is. That people pay money to sit down and watch a stranger talk about himself for 45 minutes is a weird thing, but I don't usually think about that much when I'm up there.

Have you ever used fame to hook up with hot chicks? No, because I've been with my girl for, God, 13 years. There was a time when we were still together when I was like, "Oh man, I could actually use this." Occasionally I'd be in bars and girls that would have never talked to me before, I was on cable made it incredibly easy, but no, I never was able to parlay my fame into free sex. And now I'm not allowed to by law.

What's the crappiest thing about being famous? There really isn't anything. I mean anybody that complains about being famous is a douchebag, you know? If you don't wanna talk to people don't go outside. Occasionally somebody will catch me in a bad mood, and I'm in a bad mood most of my life, but I'm conscious of it, and I have to snap out of it because I don't want anybody to have a bad experience meeting me.

I know a couple of them have gotten away from me over the years, you know, I wasn't able to keep my grouchiness at bay. But I never wanna be that guy. I've had bad experiences with meeting people that are way more famous than me, and it changes you, and you think, I don't think I like that guy as much anymore.

Wanna name drop? It's mostly rock bands, why talk about them, you know? I had Metallica be not cool to me. Chris Holmes from ('80s rock group) Wasp - I did a joke about how he was not cool to me. And then in more recent years, I did an episode of "Friends" and three of them were not very cool. It was like when they first started, it was their second season.

It's like, You're not that big of a star, and I was a guest star on the show, and I was hanging out for like a week and three of those cast members never talked to me. I walked away being a little bitter about that. Not so much bitter, but just sort of not understanding it because it doesn't take much to be human. It's really easy to be human to people. It takes more energy to be an asshole, you know? I just don't get why people wouldn't be cool to you when you're telling them you like what they do.

What is the most awkward thing that's ever happened to you while you were performing? Patton Oswald and myself, we did the Comedians of Comedy tour, and we were in Philadelphia. We weren't aware that this was happening while we were on stage, but this woman comes up, and says she's a big fan of both of us. He and I are sitting right next to each other as she's telling us the story.

She says, "I love you guys, and I had to drag my boyfriend here." We look behind and there's this guy in a polo shirt or like an Ed Hardy thing, or whatever that just doesn't fit in with the rest of the crowd. Typical douchebag, and he comes up and says, "Yeah I never heard of you guys, but my girlfriend made me come. But the good thing was she gave me a (word deleted) while you were on stage." So this is after the woman had just shaken our hands. And both he and I were just sitting there so grossed out. And we had this moment where they were just being "real" with us, and we wanted to run to our van and get out of there as soon as possible. So she loves us but in order for her to get her boyfriend to stand there and listen to us talk about our weiners for 45 minutes, she had to (word deleted) him.

OK. Awkward or awesome?Your wife tells you she's pregnant. Awesome.

But it's not yours. Uhhh awkward.

But she won the lottery. Awesome!But she's keeping the ticket and leaving you. Awesome...

Brian Posehn will play at Common Grounds on April 14. Doors are at 8pm and tickets are $15. - Jon Silman

We have four free tickets to the show. First two people to retweet or comment on this story win!